


Interlude

by greenpen



Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5163110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenpen/pseuds/greenpen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He stops on the street, about ten feet away, only ten feet away from her, after all this. He stops and stares for a while, not agape, he’d only seen her out the corner of his eye, a mirage, a double take, of course a double take. Probably a quadruple take. He doesn’t hesitate. He walks right up to the window, brings his hand to the glass, and taps on it, one two three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

There are wrinkles collecting, so slightly, around the corners of her eyes. He can tell only because he’s seen that face so many times, dreamed it once, often, almost every night.  

The truth is he would recognize her from a mile away. 

She is sitting, alone, in the window of one of those coffee shops that seems to pop up on every third corner every fourth weekend in this city. The kind where the beans are roasted on the premises and the pastries are organic. 

She’s reading. 

Her hair is blonde, of course, about the same length he remembers, just past her shoulders, slight wave at the ends. He likes it this length. She’s wearing a grey t-shirt. There’s a black leather jacket hanging over the back of her chair. 

One place set at the table, in front of her. An espresso on the right, half-empty water glass on the left. 

He stops on the street, about ten feet away, only ten feet away from her, after all this. He stops and stares for a while, not agape, he’d only seen her out the corner of his eye, a mirage, a double take, of course a double take. Probably a quadruple take. 

He doesn’t hesitate. He walks right up to the window, brings his hand to the glass, and taps on it, one two three. 

She looks up, almost too suddenly, like she’s waiting for someone. And then she smiles, at him. She smiles at him? She looks back to her left, the feeling of somebody watching her maybe. When she turns again he’s not there. A mirage, must be, there is no other way. 

And as she lets that thought settle, ruminate and fade in: “Carrie.” That sound, his voice. There he is. Right across from her. After all this. Right in front of her, after all this. 

“Carrie,” he says again, a smile now. He smiles—that sad, wonderful, beautiful half smile of his, like he can hardly stand it, to be happy, and she can do nothing but sit there, motionless and silent. 

Finally she answers back. “Hi.” It sounds so horrifically lame. “Hi.” After all this time: “Hi.” 

“Hi,” he says back, some peek of a laugh showing, because he must get it too. And there it is again: the beautiful, sad, wonderful smile. 

How can this be? 

A server walks by and asks if he’ll be joining her and before he can fight back she says, “yes. Yes, please.” 

He looks back and forth between them, at her, unsure, wavering. “Please sit.” 

So he sits. And he orders espresso. Something he’ll be able to sip quickly, if necessary. 

Her chin is resting in her palm, like the mere weight of her head is somehow too heavy to bare. She smiles at him, slyly. _Where have you been and why haven’t I seen you?_  

“Where have you been?” she says abruptly. It’s not perfect, but there it is. There is almost no other way to start. 

“I’m here. I’ve been here. I live here,” he says, no pretense, so freely. He turns his hands up as if to say, _I know, can you believe it?,_ and then she laughs, this wonderful pitch of a laugh he hasn’t heard in so long, in years. God, that sound. 

“You’ve been here,” she echoes, trying the words out for comfort, wondering if they fit (they do), letting herself believe it. He’s been here. 

Her eyes wrinkle in a smile. 

“I’ve been here.” 

“I can’t believe you’re here.” 

“Likewise.” 

“How are you?” she asks, still amazed, and he remembers then why he loved her, why he probably still does, in some nostalgic part of his heart. She would never take no for an answer. 

“I’m well,” he says nodding, almost in disbelief. _Can you believe? Me? Well!_

He reminds her of a circus performer in that moment, she can’t place why, probably some weird childhood memory he’s unwittingly conjured up. 

“You look it.” A pause, and then: “Really. You do.” 

He doesn’t answer immediately. The server brings over his coffee and he takes a tentative sip first, trying not to wince. 

“Thank you.” 

It’s only just then, as he brings the small cup to his lips that she notices. He is wearing a ring. She notices he is wearing a ring. 

It’s unassuming, of course. Except it’s a ring. Gold band, left hand, fourth finger. There is no mistaking what this is. A ring, gold, left hand, fourth finger. 

She smiles weakly at him, idly tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then wonders why bother. He knows every sign of hers, every tell. If she is uncomfortable he’ll know. Every single emotion of hers, she realizes, he has seen and registered and catalogued in his brain to bring out at a time like this, where he will read the slightest minutiae on her face and deduce, “you’re uncomfortable.” “No, I’m not.” “You are.” She plays it over in her head, this fake little argument  they would have had, maybe six years ago. Or seven? (Can she really be that old?) 

Except he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t say anything.

“You’re married,” she says instead, unable to help herself. It’s not a question, just a statement of fact. He is married. There is a ring, gold, fourth finger, left hand. 

She makes herself small, placing her hands in her lap, touching her palms together as firmly as they’ll go without breaking the laws of physics. 

He looks down. 

She wonders if he’s embarrassed him. 

He looks down at his hand, stares at it curiously as if it’s not his own, then back up at her. 

“Yes.” 

“You got married?”

Now it’s more like a question. 

“Yes.” 

He takes a sip of water. She feels like she’s put him on the spot, but doesn’t really care. Because he is married. 

“Wow,” she says, low, drawn out. The kind of “wow” you say when you have to vocalize your surprise because you can’t really feel anything else. 

“Don’t act _so_ shocked,” he says, eyebrows raised. 

“I’m—”

“I know.” She returns the look, eyebrows raised. “I _know_!” 

“It was really rather impulsive,” he offers, and she realizes then he’s going to tell her. How he got married and probably how he met his wife and asked her to marry him. And where they live and— _Jesus_ —it’s just dawned on her that he could have children as well. 

“That doesn’t sound like you,” she says, coming out of her own trance. 

“I know. I guess I got tired of waiting.” 

She swallows and wonders if he’s referring to her. 

“We both did.” 

_We who?_ “We who?” she almost asks before he continues. 

“So we just did it. We went to City Hall and a judge married us in between a couple of 18-year-olds and this guy and his partner. They’d been together like forty years. We were the only ones there, if you can believe it. Just the six of us.” 

“Wow,” she says again. 

“Her name’s Elizabeth.”

There is almost nothing else to say. He got tired of waiting and so he did it, and now he is married. It is an uncomplicated thing that she can’t quite grasp. 

“I’m…” she pauses, unsure what to say. She’s just saying words, she realizes, to fill some silence or need to keep up the conversation. She’s just saying words without really saying anything. “I’m really happy for you, Quinn.” 

“How… how long?” 

“A year, last August.” 

“Wow.” 

“I wanted to call you,” he says, and she almost skips a breath. She’s not used to this version of him, so forthcoming. She almost feels like she can’t keep up, ironically. 

“I wanted to call you to tell you.” 

“You should have called.” 

“I guess I didn’t want to… bring up old wounds.” 

She turns her head slightly, trying to understand this. Trying to understand how after all this time he can still be so kind to her, why he cares at all about bringing up old wounds. 

“You wouldn’t have done that.” 

“Maybe not,” he says, smiling to himself. 

“I’m the one who should have called.” 

“Maybe…” he says, cocking his head, and they both laugh, not with each other, to themselves. A private joke. 

“Although I had no idea where you were,” she says, revisiting it, smiling. 

“Here. Plain old here,” he says, not indulging her. 

She sips on her coffee. 

“I’m really happy for you, Quinn,” she says, as consolation, trying to clear the air again. 

“Thanks.” 

She wonders if she’s patronizing him, to offer him her happiness, her approval even, as if he requires it. 

It begins to drizzle outside just then, small smatterings of rain hitting the sidewalk, some the window. 

“So.” 

“So.” 

It’s her least favorite interlude. 

“What brings you to New York?” 

“Business.” 

“Not pleasure?”

“Not pleasure.” 

“Good business, then, I hope.” 

“I hope so, too.” 

“I guess now I’m the one who can’t know anymore.” 

“If you could I’d tell you.” 

“That’s what I figured.” 

He sighs, almost heavily, and looks straight at her. 

“I guess that makes sense,” he says. 

“What?” she says, in that way she does, playing dumb, asking some question she probably already knows the answer to. 

“You. Langley. You were too good at it to walk away. And I needed it too badly.” 

She stares at him, brow furrowed, and considers this. 

“I guess I needed it badly after all, too.” 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. 

“You didn’t need it. Not really. You had Franny.” 

“Oh.” 

She realizes then what he means.

“I… fuck, I just needed it too badly. It’s a miracle I’m out.” 

She looks at him and tries to remember a time, a time that feels like forever ago, when the idea of getting out sounded appealing, and attainable. Franny was little and she was younger and so much more naïve. 

As she gets older, this puzzles her. Her continual naïveté. She wants to say it’s a miracle she’s back in, because it is. A selfish miracle. 

It’s a miracle they are both still alive, talking to each other, right here. Her faith in something unknowable is sustained by this and this alone.

She prayed for a miracle, and this is what she got. 

“How is she?” 

It takes her a moment to realize he’s talking about Franny.

“Good. She’s almost seven.” 

“ _Seven_? Jesus Christ, that makes me feel old.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it.” 

“I can’t believe it’s been seven years…” he trails off, not wanting to finish that sentence. 

Carrie smiles shyly. What she wants to say is that she can. These six and a half years: long, grueling, torturous. Her mind somersaults briefly, a flashbulb memory really, to the video he helped her make. Three and a half years ago, in that abandoned garage, back to her, trying not to listen. Speaking into the camera, saying goodbye. Her stomach sinks at the thought. 

She wonders if he still has that video. She wants to ask. 

“Yeah, me neither.” 

“So she likes DC?” 

“She likes DC. She likes it well enough.”

“She doesn’t really have a choice though, does she?” 

She laughs. 

“I guess not.” 

“And you like DC?” 

“It’s growing back on me.” 

“It’s no Baghdad.”

“It’s no Berlin.” 

“Right.” 

There is some part of her that hates him for even saying it, for even moving on and past it. She’s not sure why it was easier for him. She guesses that he just had nothing to lose. There was nothing at stake for him there and never had been. Not really anyway. 

“What… what about you?” 

“What about me?” 

“Are you—are you seeing anybody? Are you with anyone?”

It feels only fair to ask. 

She leans back in her chair a little bit and stares out the window. Idly she twists the ring around her own finger, three twisted bands welded into one. 

She turns back to him. 

“No. No, I’m not.” 

She expects him to say something like “driving all the men away with your looks and brains?” or “don’t worry, you will.” Something to ease the moment, something to give her at this part. 

Instead he says, starting slowly, “Do you ever…” He begins turning his water glass on the table in quarter-turns, a nervous habit maybe. “…Do you ever wonder… if I hadn’t left, when I did. If I hadn’t gone to Syria. If we had gotten out at the same time…?” 

He looks up at the end, to her, that sad, beautiful, wonderful half-smile again, in his eyes now too. 

She pauses, wonders which answer will hurt him the least.

“Sure,” she says quietly, hardly above a whisper, eyes glowing.

This is their secret. That they both wondered about it, in quiet nights, she alone, he alone. Then, but not now. Sleeping beside other men, or other women—or man, or woman—doing the mental trick to insert her body next to his. 

That’s all it is, a mental trick. 

Dreams of him taking out the trash every Tuesday night, sharing ice cream together on the couch. 

Getting out together. What kind of miracle. 

He wonders if she really wanted it. Because if she did, wouldn’t she still have it? Couldn’t he more than just wonder? Wouldn’t they have it? 

_You want out, too._

He really thought she did. He only just now realizes how foolish he had been. Maybe it’s the perspective these years have offered him, the perspective he’s accepted, but he gets it now. 

She was too good at it, and he needed it too badly. 

His addiction was a different kind than hers. His was curable. And it’s taken him this long. 

“Stupid,” he says. 

She reaches out then, abruptly, suddenly, and takes hold of his hand in hers. She presses her thumb into the gold ring on his fourth finger, then traces over the line, feeling what that’s like. 

“No,” she says. “It’s not stupid.” 

He can’t move now. He wants to return this kindness in some way but he just sits there, dumbly. 

The door to the café opens just then, a startling noise, like bells ringing, and he retreats, pulling his hand back where it belongs, beside his other one, in his lap. 

Her arms just hang there, outstretched and empty. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

She sits back in her chair again and stares out the window. “Don’t be.” 

Now back to him. 

“You’re not doing anything wrong. There’s nothing to apologize for.” 

She wonders if he fears he’s crossed a line with her. Or she with him. If the physical contact was too much. Before, she’d think about that, how long he went without it, without being held or touched, the pulse of someone else’s electricity mixed with his own. It made him skittish the way a beaten dog is. 

Now, the opposite. Has she made him a cheat? How can she tell him she felt nothing, no spark, holding his limp hand in hers?

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” she repeats. 

For a second she imagines what it would be like to cheat with him. Him, a married man. Exhilarating, probably, if the sex was like she remembers. She imagines it in his bed, while she wasn’t home, but they have to be quiet, still. She imagines taking care of him, this version of him. She wonders if he has nightmares. She wonders if he sees anyone about them, the hypothetical nightmares she’s not sure he’s having.

She imagines him touching her, on her side, his fingers brushing against her skin. On the back of her neck, his lips pressed against her. She imagines him being able to love her in a way that didn’t kill him, in the way that she required. Not needing her so fucking much. 

That’s where the daydream stops, in that struggle, and she turns back to him, realizes he’s talking on his phone. How long had that lasted? 

“No, I’ll be home soon.” He looks at his wrist. “Thirty minutes, probably?… I just stopped for coffee.” He laughs. “Sure, what kind?” He turns to the cashier and squints his eyes. “Cinnamon roll, scones I think. Muffins… these little cake things with frosting… Ok... Ok.” 

Then he hangs up. 

She raises her eyebrows at him. 

“She’s been craving desserts a lot lately. Wants me to bring back something for her.” 

“Which one?” 

“‘Surprise me’ is what she said.” 

“Ah.” 

“Sorry.” He cocks his head toward his phone, now sitting on the counter. 

“Don’t. It’s ok.” Then: “Are you going to tell her?” 

“Tell her what?” 

“That you saw me.” 

His face goes blank then and he starts doing that thing with his water glass again. 

“Quinn,” she says, not daring to reach out to him again, willing him to cut this bullshit. 

“Sure, I’ll tell her.” 

“What will you tell her?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Who will you say you saw? An old friend? A former colleague? Some guy you grew up with?” 

“Carrie.” 

“Or will you tell her that you saw me? Assuming she knows I exist.” 

It’s unfair, and she knows this, since she has hardly told every man she’s ever been with seriously about him.

Then again, she’s never been married. 

“She knows.” 

“So will you? Tell her?” 

“I don’t know. It might upset her.” 

“That you had coffee with me?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why? What’s so bad about that?” 

He stares blankly at her. 

“Really, I’d like to know.” 

She is calmer than he’d expect. Her voice isn’t raised. She’s not being hysterical or defensive, Her voice is even and low, like he’s only offended her, like if she wanted to, she could blow this entire thing up. The situation has flipped on itself for a brief moment, and she’s gained all the power. 

He considers whether to answer. He wonders if he’ll only just make it worse, or hurt her feelings.

The server walks by just then and stops between them, an unknowing mediator. 

“Anything else I can get you two?” 

“Just the check,” he says. “And one of those cake things. With the frosting. To go.” He pulls a credit card from his wallet and hands it to him. 

The server nods and disappears from view again. He watches him, waits until he’s out of earshot, though he’s not sure why he cares what a stranger overhears. 

“She thinks that you pose certain temptations,” he says abruptly. It sounds like a line. 

Carrie turns her head slightly, narrows her eyes at him. 

“…to me,” he adds, in case it wasn’t clear. 

Her jaw clenches in that way he recognizes, in that way she does when she’s fighting the urge to cry or laugh or maybe do both at once.

“Do you agree?” she asks, barely above a whisper. 

Does _she_? She considers this for a moment, whether it’s the truth, whether she’s some siren calling out to him, mid-ocean, poised to pull him back to the murky depths with her. It didn’t used to be like this, she didn’t used to be like this. She recalls a time, not very long ago, when their situation was reversed. When he was too much for her, fighting at what she needed, trying to give her what she wanted. 

Maybe that was why she left. 

“You… you don’t have to answer that,” she says finally, when she realizes he won’t. His silence is good enough. She’s not an idiot. 

The server reappears with the check, places it in front of Quinn and a small brown box in front of Carrie. Quinn picks up the pen and studies the piece of paper, placing his card back in his wallet. Carrie slowly slides the box toward him. Paired transactions. 

“Look—” he starts, eyes fixed downward.

“Why then?” she interrupts. 

“Why what?” he asks, looking up this time.

“Why… why did you come up to the window and invite yourself in? Why did you order coffee? Why did you pay the fucking bill?” 

His lip twitches slightly, upturned. 

“Why are you here?” 

He opens his mouth, as if to speak, then closes it, breath escaping in a quick, pitched rush. She remembers this quality of his, how he’d go speechless like this, silent, receding like a kicked dog, deflecting the guilt back to her. 

“I wanted to see you,” he says finally. He says it slowly, as if he’s trying out the words to see if they fit (they do). He did want to see her. 

“I saw you sitting there, in the window. I haven’t seen you for three years, Carrie. I haven’t spoken to you in three years.” 

He thinks of how their relationships comes in spurts, stopping and starting at their own differing whims. 

He leaves, she stays. 

He is ready, she balks. 

They never move together, in the same direction. Their paths are inverted. Never in sync, never in time. 

“I wanted to talk to you. And see you. And see how you are.” 

_Here I am._

_I’ve been here._

She has nothing left to say to him. She’s seen the ring, and heard him speak to her. There is nothing left to say. There is nothing left. 

“Listen,” he starts. Why hasn’t he gone? “I should go. I need to catch the train uptown.” 

“I am really glad I saw you though. And I’m glad I came in here. I’m glad I got to talk to you.”

He stops just short of telling her he missed her. 

He smiles. One final sad, wonderful, beautiful half-smile. 

He rises from his seat, cradles the small brown box in both hands.

“Take care of yourself, Carrie.” 

She stares up at him, this time at a loss. She feels a dull pain in her gut as she wonders if this will be the last time. He is always surprising her that way. 

“I will.” 

She struggles to smile, fights the urge to leave him with that parting picture. 

Before she can decide, he turns. The rain has picked up and he zips his jacket in preparation, turns up his collar. 

And like that he is gone, exits as swiftly as he entered. Her eyes follow him outside as he crosses the street and disappears underground. He’ll take the #1 train, she guesses. He’ll find a spot in the corner, away from the other commuters, and stay standing the whole time. He’ll get off one stop before he should, and walk the rest of the way home, in the rain. And when he gets home he’ll give her the little brown box and kiss her on the top of her head and nothing more will ever be said. 

She thinks back years before, when she still felt like she knew him. 

Seven years ago, she asked him for permission to be alone and he refused. “I think they call that love,” he had said then. At the time, she hated him for being right about it. And she never thanked him. He would have deflected, surely. He never accepted her thanks, if she bothered to give it. It just wasn’t something he was good at. 

Even now, she thinks he’d refuse. 

She sits there alone for a while longer, reads emails on her phone, busies her brain with things she can understand. There’s a text from Maggie, accompanied by a photo of Franny, her face covered in tomato sauce: “spaghetti night.” 

She almost starts crying, alone there in this little coffee shop. She misses her so much and it’s only been two days. She texts back, “give her a kiss goodnight from me.” Then: “i’ll call tomorrow before school.”

It’s getting dark now, headlights on and the entire space is lit in a soft yellow glow. The rain has slowed outside and she feels a safe distance between them. At least ten trains would have come and gone. 

She gets up slowly, her legs feel uneasy from inaction, and puts her jacket on. Now standing, she sees he hardly touched the espresso. She can’t remember if he ever drank coffee. There are some things like that, things she no longer remembers, things that have melted away over time, faded like writing on a crumpled piece of paper. 

She huffs to herself, slinging her bag across her body, when it catches her eye: messy black scrawl. 

His writing, his own handwriting, maybe the only thing that’s lasted all these years, indelible. 

His writing, on his copy of the receipt, across the bottom. She picks up the paper, glossy between her fingertips. 

She reads, just below his own signature, black ink smudged:

_I almost took another way home._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Strangely inspired by Stars' "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"


End file.
